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Louise Thomas
Editor
Campaigners have called for the Electoral Commission to be given powers to investigate discriminatory language used in campaigns after multiple Reform UK candidates were engulfed in racism rows.
During the six week campaign Reform has been forced to ditch at least 11 parliamentary candidates over accusations they made racist comments on social media, including one prospective MP who said African people had among the “lowest IQs in the world.
Last week canvasser Andrew Parker, referred to prime minister Rishi Sunak as a “f***ing p***” in undercover footage from a Channel 4 investigation. Essex Police said it is “urgently assessing” Mr Parker’s remarks to establish if there are any criminal offences. And Reform UK candidates were found to be members of a public Facebook group that regularly posts racist messages such as a post stating there should be “no race mixing” and that “the only thing black a white woman should have is black leather”.
But despite widespread outrage, the commission says it can only investigate and sanction parties for breaches of the political finance and imprint laws.
Labour’s Bell Ribeiro-Addy, former MP for Streatham and who is running for Clapham and Brixton Hill, is among those calling for the watchdog’s remit to be broadened.
“Overseeing our democratic functions should include a responsibility to protect all citizens from racism and bigotry,” she told The Independent. “Discrimination is against our laws and any political party using racist, homophobic, disabilist or misogynist language should face consequences. During an election the most obvious body to police the type of hateful language we have seen used by the Reform UK campaign is the electoral commission.”
The calls come as Europe experiences a surge in far right parties, including Marine Le Pen’s National Rally which is leading in the first round of a snap election called by Emmanuel Macron.
Campaign group Grassroots Black Left said it is seeing: “an alarming current surge in support for the nationalist far right in Europe, including France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy. All of them have achieved success by disguising their previously overt racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, xenophobia and other forms of disgusting bigotry to fool voters. The Electoral Commission needs to have the powers to intervene as a supposed regulator.”
Black columnist Femi Oluwole was removed from a Reform rally by security guards over the weekend. He told The Independent that the last few years have revealed the UK’s political system “doesn’t have anything close to the safeguards it needs”.
“Blatant hate speech and death threats have been used by senior politicians without lasting consequence,” he said. “All of this must change. The electoral commission should ban anyone who is found to have acted unlawfully in office from standing again - and we need stricter laws on hate speech from politicians.
“I don’t believe in arresting every citizen who says something racist. But if a politician goes on national TV and dishonesty brands almost half of British Muslims as terrorist supporters, that is implied incitement.”
Mr Oluwole cited a Sky News interview last month, where Mr Farage, the former Ukip leader said: “We have a growing number of young people in this country who do not subscribe to British values, (who) in fact loathe much of what we stand for.”
When asked if he was talking about Muslims, Farage replied: “We are. … And I’m afraid I found some of the recent surveys saying that 46 per cent of British Muslims support Hamas – support a terrorist organisation that is proscribed in this country.”
The survey asked British Muslims who they have more empathy for out of Hamas and Israel.
During a TV interview in 2017, Mr Farage said “frankly, if you open your door to uncontrolled immigration from Middle Eastern countries, you are inviting in terrorism.”
Concerns have been raised that such divisive rhetoric is being normalised. From Enoch Powell’s racist ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in 1968 to former prime minister Boris Johnson, who called burka-wearing Muslim women “letterboxes”, Black Lives Matter UK pointed to a history of political figures “leveraging racism for their gain”.
“The rise of Reform UK has been deeply troubling, and it is not surprising that members of Reform UK have been caught making racist remarks while campaigning,” a BLM UK spokesperson told The Independent.
While pointing out that addressing racist campaigning was not within its remit, the Electoral Commission urged those involved in political campaigns to be “respectful”.
“Campaigning is a vital part of our democratic process and usually carried out respectfully. However, our research has shown that harassment and abuse of candidates has become too common,” a spokesperson said. “Campaigning can and should take place without the use of inflammatory language or anyone experiencing abuse.
“We urge campaigners to talk to their staff and volunteers about the importance of safe and respectful campaigning.”
Reform UK was approached for comment.
Addressing a rally in Birmingham on Sunday, party leader Nigel Farage insisted that “the bad apples are gone” after withdrawing support for three candidates.
“Look, Reform is a new organisation,” he told the audience. “It’s a start-up and there were requests put out for candidates to stand.
“Have we had a few bad apples? We have, although to my knowledge nobody involved in an organised betting ring is standing for us, which is something.”
Mr Farage has suggested that Mr Parker, who is an actor, was used as a “plant” by Channel 4 in their undercover investigation into his campaign – a claim the broadcaster strenuously denies.
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